As some of you know I am trying to collect websites of organisations or projects that are relevant for space exploration. My focus is on finding crowd based projects, either utilising crowd funding, or crowd sourcing or both.

I experimented with this concept, even started one called the "Open Source Launch Vehicle". However, a big problem at least for USAsians is our own government does not want us to share technology with anyone "else". ITAR means no American citizen or business can participate in any kind of serious open space effort without doing a lot of paperwork and/or risking running afoul with the law.

I experimented with this concept, even started one called the "Open Source Launch Vehicle". However, a big problem at least for USAsians is our own government does not want us to share technology with anyone "else". ITAR means no American citizen or business can participate in any kind of serious open space effort without doing a lot of paperwork and/or risking running afoul with the law.

That sucks balls.

I hope that isn't the case everywhere cause that is a major hurdle for technological innovation and development.

Although even if it is the case, we could go pirate! ARRRRRRRGGHH!

Anyway, thanks for the links so far, I am going to check them out and put them on my list. Keep them coming.

Well maybe IF open source hardware takes off elsewhere in the world they might change their mind.

It doesn't matter anyway, it's not like suddenly everybody will want to donate their blueprints of rockets to the world in america. And even if they did, they probably could do it without ITAR finding it out.

And even if that happened, nobody has the money to build anything on serious scales apart from large companies or governments.

And helping somebody else with their efforts of building hardware is even harder to track. Unless they are allowed to scan people's private mails and e-mails.

But to stay on topic. Here is another link I really likehttp://mach30.orgI can't remember if somebody told me about this here, or I found the link in somebodies signature or I found it elsewhere. Does anyone remember, or has anybody here seen this project?

Also anybody else has more useful or cool links? Is there a thread like this out there already?

Well maybe IF open source hardware takes off elsewhere in the world they might change their mind.

It doesn't matter anyway, it's not like suddenly everybody will want to donate their blueprints of rockets to the world in america. And even if they did, they probably could do it without ITAR finding it out.

And even if that happened, nobody has the money to build anything on serious scales apart from large companies or governments.

And helping somebody else with their efforts of building hardware is even harder to track. Unless they are allowed to scan people's private mails and e-mails.

But to stay on topic. Here is another link I really likehttp://mach30.orgI can't remember if somebody told me about this here, or I found the link in somebodies signature or I found it elsewhere. Does anyone remember, or has anybody here seen this project?

Also anybody else has more useful or cool links? Is there a thread like this out there already?

The USA government never changes it's mind! ITAR is to prevent terrorism (amongst other things), and you know how touchy they are about that. Trying to circumvent it will get you in to very big trouble. Read the arocket list archives - lots about ITAR on there.

For example, Armadillo's Stig rocket would make a very handy military missile. And it costs about $100k (probably a lot less now) - well within budget of a terrorist organisation/state.

I experimented with this concept, even started one called the "Open Source Launch Vehicle". However, a big problem at least for USAsians is our own government does not want us to share technology with anyone "else". ITAR means no American citizen or business can participate in any kind of serious open space effort without doing a lot of paperwork and/or risking running afoul with the law.

I think that's a great idea. Here's a suggestion to the comment section on Cosmic Log about crowd funding an orbital rocket:

Thanks for the article, Alan. I think you may be right about the snowball effect. Companies like SpaceX have shown that small companies can be successful in the space business, which is a great encouragement to others interested in space travel.

SpaceX has shown that we can develop an orbital launcher in the $300 million cost range.

Could we "crowdfund" our own launcher? Say we made it 1/10th the payload capability of the Falcon 9, so at a 1,000 kg payload. Then perhaps it could be done for $30 million.

How many people would pay to have an investment in their own orbital launcher? An average of $1,000 for 30,000 people would do it. Or $100 for 300,000 people.

To get that many people involved though you would need something more than just KickStarter. You would need national advertising. I looked up some prices for national TV ads and was surprised at how low they were, at least for an average 30-second ad, not for something like the Superbowl:

The Average Cost of a 30 Second Spot on National Tv? $104,051 ……and a Domain?By Shane Cultra - August 2, 201

Quote:

These are the average costs of advertising as of June 8th 201030 Second National Television Spot on Fox………….$200,008and on ABC and CBS $94,000and the “cheapest” NBC was a mere $76,211How about CableESPN 30 second spot $19,301USA and TNT at $15,000the average of all cable stations $9,968http://domainshane.com/the-average-cost ... -a-domain/

The intent of that article was to show how high national TV ads are, but I was surprised at how low they are at least for the cable channels. It looks like the cable networks would be the way to go. You would target networks like the SyFy channel and the science and nature channels.

You would still need to raise the $10 to $20 thousand per spot. Then this is where KickStarter and other crowd funding sites come in. Amounts in this range are well within the range you could raise on the crowd funding sites.

It will be interesting to see the results of PR's "rent-a-space-telescope" Kickstarter campaign, if they share.

I agree with you that a mass-media marketing is what is needed for this interest to really get anywhere. "We" tend to "preach to the choir" and only reach out to space enthusiasts, while the real money and resources are in the rest of the population. But OTOH, the ground is less fertile there. I think hypothetical numbers of the interest and support for space in the general public are always "optimistic".

Need to hire a celebrity spokesperson and/or use pictures of puppies/starving babies/etc.

Just show an asteroid slamming into Terra. Maybe make some footage of dying dinosaurs to put on it, coupled with the aforementioned hypothetical dying humans... :p

Re. ITAR, that just means Americans won't be able to (openly) participate. It won't stop us other 6.5 billion people from working on something, and in the process embarrassing the US government (when they realise that ITAR is absolutely useless, they might change their tune...). Also, even if an American does have something that would be useful, they can always drop off a flash drive when on holiday in Europe...

I think the issue is that for any space program you need continuous funding year after year.

If your project can't draw in and keep the attention and the support of the space enthusiasts like yourself it will never work on the general public.

So really the first problem to solve is find or create a project that WE would love to be part of and would actually commit to till we die.

When that happens, and we draw in the people who wan't to go into space or who just want to see people living up there, then we will also start drawing in attention from people who never even thought about this subject or thought it was interesting.

So I think the question is not what project would attract people in and keep their support long term. The question is what project would get your attention and keep your long term support.

Anyway, I started a wiki to collect these open source projects up with some simple stats. I also want to enter companies and government programs and projects as well. It's just for my own "education" on the subject, I wan't to see what's going on out there at the moment apart from the obvious projects that make it to the media.

I thought that I would try and tackle this crowd funding crowd sourcing problem from a different angle. I will just focus on myself and try and figure out how I would fit into a hypothetical mass collaboration based space program. I will try and develop a system to help me contribute to teams out there already, and maybe when that system is up others could make use of it as well.

Things I need at the moment is finding the teams, I also need to figure out a way to document them, monitor their progress, and monitor my involvement. So I have been thinking about a database for it all.